NOAM CHOMSKY The President, the Pandemic & the Election Interviewed by David Barsamian Oro Valley, AZ 9 October 2020

Noam Chomsky, by any measure, has led a most extraordinary life. In one index he is ranked as the eighth most cited person in history, right up there with Aristotle, Shakespeare, Marx, Plato and Freud. The legendary MIT professor made major contributions to modern linguistics. In addition to his pioneering work in that field he has been a leading voice for peace and social justice for many decades. He is the author of scores of books, including Global Discontents with David Barsamian.

Welcome to the program. from the scientific and medical communities. The New England Journal of Medicine on October 7th has called the Glad to be with you again. regime’s handling of the pandemic “dangerously incompetent.” It has “taken a crisis and turned it into a It’s axiomatic to hear in virtually all media, that the country tragedy. Instead of relying on expertise, the administration is deeply divided and polarized, red and blue. Do you accept has turned to uninformed ‘opinion leaders’ and charlatans that? And if so, how to overcome it? who obscure the truth and facilitate the promulgation of outright lies.” In addition to The New England Journal of Well, the country is polarized in a funny sense. A large part Medicine, the Scientific American broke with 175 years of of the country is by international standards centrist, and the tradition by endorsing the Democratic candidate. And The more progressive elements are slightly social democratic. Lancet, the prestigious British journal, called on Americans The other part of the country is way off to the right. So in to make Trump a one-term president. What is your sense of that sense, yes, it’s polarized. The way to overcome what’s going on with the pandemic and Washington’s polarization is to seek common ground and work to response? approach consensus, at least on crucial issues. As to what that common ground should be, it depends on what you Basically, they don’t care. It is pretty astonishing that the would prefer the country to be. If you’re way off to the major U.S. medical journal, The New England Journal of right, the way to overcome it is to work to convince others Medicine, which has been around for over two centuries, for to join you at the extreme right of the spectrum of opinion the first time in its history has taken a stand on an election. in comparable societies. If you have different goals, you’ll Scientific American the same, The Lancet did it some act accordingly. months ago. And it is outrageous. In fact, if we look back at the record, it’s even more You were born in 1928, a decade after the misnamed outrageous. It’s worth looking back at the record because Spanish flu hit the world, causing hundreds of thousands of we are facing the same situation again that we faced in 2003. U.S. deaths and many millions around the globe. I say We’d better understand how this came about if we hope to misnamed because the first reported case was at a U.S. prevent the next one. And the next one could be much military base in Kansas in 1918. As a kid growing up in worse. We’ve been kind of lucky so far. There have been Philadelphia, did people talk about it? Do you have any coronaviruses that are highly contagious but not very lethal, memory of it? like this one is; that have been highly lethal but not very contagious, like Ebola. The next one, for all we know, might You’re correct. It started in a military base in Kansas, and be highly contagious and highly lethal, and we might be American soldiers going to Europe spread it in Europe and back to something like the Black Death. And it’s very likely then it spread all over. But if somebody were a Trump, they to come. would be calling it the Kansas flu. I was born 10 years later, So let’s just go back for a minute and look at what 1928. I never heard a word about it. I learned about it later, happened with this one, and specifically, what happened when I was looking it up in history books. By 10 years later with Donald Trump and the Republican Party. In 2003, the it had essentially no residue on growing up in the U.S. I SARS epidemic coronavirus was contained, and scientists never ran into anyone who talked about it. told us pretty much what they’re saying now: It’s very likely others will come. We have to be prepared for it. The way Let’s talk about the current pandemic, which has resulted in we have to be prepared for it is to study coronaviruses, work the deaths of now almost 215,000 U.S. and millions of cases, out possible vaccines, put in place response systems so that numbers that are certain to go much higher. The regime in when it comes you will be ready to move. Washington has come under wide criticism, particularly 2

It’s not enough to have the knowledge. Somebody has to Well, when Obama came into office, his first step was to do something with it. And here you have fundamental organize a meeting of the Presidential Science Advisory problems much deeper than Trump. Who is going to pick up Council, which had been set up by the first Bush. He asked the ball and run with it on researching and developing the them to prepare a pandemic preparation program. They background for vaccines? came back with a detailed program. It was implemented. The obvious candidate, the drug companies. They have That lasted until January 2017. Donald Trump came into profits coming out of their ears, huge laboratories, plenty of office. The first days in office, he dismantled the program. resources. But they’re blocked by capitalist logic, which Trump’s major operative principle is to wreck. Anything remains. You don’t put money in something that might that exists that I didn’t do, destroy (and anything I did do is work out a couple years from now, and you certainly don’t the greatest thing in history, as Sean Hannity will confirm). put money in vaccines, which people use once and then You will notice that tells just about everything about his they’re done with. Put your money in things you can make actions. So destroy the pandemic preparation program. profit on tomorrow. That’s capitalist logic. So the drug There were programs of American scientists working companies are out. with Chinese colleagues. Difficult work, dangerous work in Next comes the government. Again, ample resources, caves identifying possible coronaviruses to study them. wonderful laboratories. But they’re blocked by something Trump cancelled it. The Centers for Disease Control in the called neoliberalism, a particularly savage version of U.S. is supposed to be concerned with such things. The first capitalism that was explained to us very frankly 40 years move, defund it. Every single year Trump has been in office ago straight out. The essence of it was produced in a couple he has tried to defund the CDC, as late as the most recent of sentences in Ronald Reagan’s Inaugural Address: one, February of this year, when the Bob Woodward “Government is the problem, not the solution.” Meaning we revelations show he knew that there was a serious pandemic remove decisions from government, which is partially and Americans were going to suffer from it. Budget responsive to populations, and put the decisions in private proposal? Defund the Centers for Disease Control, increase hands, which are totally unaccountable, the corporate funding for the military instead, defund other health-related sector. They will make the decisions. programs. The second contribution was the primary economic guru What happened in January? In late December, China was of neoliberalism, Milton Friedman. About the same time he finding pneumonia-like symptoms of unknown etiology and came out with a famous article on the nature of the reported it to the World Health Organization. Very quickly corporation, highly influential. He said the sole they discovered what it was. By January 10th, Chinese responsibility of a corporation is to enrich itself, to scientists had identified the coronavirus, sequenced the maximize profit for shareholders. And of course that means genome, provided the information to the World Health for management and CEOs. Anything else is wrong. This is Organization and the world. At that point countries noticed not an economic doctrine, it’s an ethical doctrine. It has that the U.S. was singularly unprepared because of Trump’s nothing to do with economics. The economics are malevolence. Nevertheless, it’s a rich country, plenty of straightforward. Corporations are gifts from the public to resources. It could have reacted. It didn’t. In January, people who incorporate. If you want to incorporate, you’re governments that cared about their citizens did react. Many given a gift by the public. The first gift, limited liability. of them had the situation pretty quickly under control. And many other gifts. Now the question is an ethical Take the borders of China. South China is where the question, not an economic one. You have to do something epidemic was the worst. It has a 1400-kilometre border with about these gifts. Milton Friedman says no, you should just Vietnam. No cases in Vietnam. For months there were no maximize shareholder value, and of course that means cases. Now there is a handful of cases, essentially nothing. management compensation, CEO compensation. They acted at once. The same was true in East Asia and Put those two together. All decisions have to be placed Oceania quite generally. South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, in the hands of the corporate sector, whose sole goal is to Thailand, Australia, New Zealand quickly acted. Very much enrich themselves. What do you think is going to happen under control. The same was true elsewhere: Africa, from that? We’ve seen it for 40 years. In fact, there was just Senegal, almost nothing. Several other countries in Africa an estimate from the Rand Corporation which concluded moved at once. Almost no cases. Europe waited, but finally that the transfer of wealth from the middle class and the got its act together. Most of Europe is more or less under working class to the very rich, the top few percent or maybe control, not entirely. The Nordic countries, pretty much fraction of 1% of the population, that transfer is $47 trillion. under control. Germany, pretty much under control. Even That’s actually an underestimate. That’s what happened. Italy, which had a very severe pandemic, is now pretty much But let’s go back to the pandemic. Drug companies are under control. Britain was the worst. The U.S. is off the ruled out by capitalist logic, government is ruled out by the spectrum. neoliberal version of savage capitalism. What’s left? If you look at the cases and deaths around the world, Leaders, who may or may not do something. there are three countries that are way at the top: the United States first, India second, Brazil third. Maybe this is bare 3 coincidence, but all three of them have autocratic rulers who hurt those living near the most polluting industries. That’s are trying to crush democracy. I could go into the details. not me, that’s not you. We can afford not to live there. But But those three are way at the top in both respects. Fourth, there are people who can’t afford not to live there: African well behind them, is Russia, another country not known for Americans, Hispanics, Puerto Ricans, poor people in vibrant democracy. Then you go down, you find others general. They’re stuck there. That’s maximizing pollution. down the list. Pollution is already a deadly killer. When you add pollution Trump’s behavior since January has been almost as if it to a respiratory epidemic, it’s a major killer. was designed to maximize the crimes. He’s personally Okay, we’ll kill more of them. Let’s kill people around responsible for arguably hundreds of thousands of the world. To blame somebody for my malevolence, I’ll American deaths, certainly many tens of thousands. You blame the World Health Organization on ludicrous grounds. can see it step by step. It never stops. There was a I’ll undercut, defund the World Health Organization. What government scientist in charge of vaccine development. He does that mean? There are countless people throughout the questioned some of Trump’s quack medicines. Fired. The world—Africa, Yemen, other poor places—who depend on programs that were working with the Wuhan Institute of the services of the World Health Organization for survival. Virology, the main research center for coronaviruses, Okay, let’s kill them, because then I can turn to my adoring cancelled. We have to try to blame China for Trump’s constituency and say I’m protecting you from the foreigners malevolence, so we have to cancel programs that might help who are trying to destroy us. Vote for me. It doesn’t matter America. how many people you kill, how much you destroy, how The most recent example. There is an international many Americans you kill. It’s me and my rich constituency. consortium that’s working on cooperation on vaccine That’s the world. Incompetence isn’t the right word for this. development, which is obviously the way to proceed, also working in a limited way on distributional problems, trying You mentioned Bob Woodward, the celebrated Washington to make sure that if there are vaccines, they won’t be Post journalist of Watergate fame. What did you think of his monopolized by the very rich but will go to the people who decision in his book Rage not to release the information that need them. Trump reacted to this by pulling out of the Trump said Covid-19 was “a killer…It is the plague.” He consortium just a couple of weeks ago. We don’t want to be held on to that information for months and months. part of an international effort that might help Americans and everyone else. Anything that he didn’t create, destroy. He gave his reasons. You can judge them as well as I can. Uniform, across the board. My own judgment, it was quite improper. He had reasons. There’s another one going on right now. There is an He said it wasn’t verified, he wanted to make sure all the i’s international UN conference on biodiversity that is critically are dotted and the t’s are crossed and so on. Okay, that’s an relevant to pandemics. Species are being destroyed at a argument if you’re writing a book for the interests of the crazy rate, the sixth extinction. Areas where wildlife can be future. But right here hundreds of thousands of lives are at sequestered from human contact are being destroyed, stake. My own feeling is that at that point it’s worth setting up all the conditions for further spread of pandemics. releasing the information, even if it’s not totally verified. Every country is participating except one—the United States. We will not participate in an international conference Overall media coverage of the pandemic, what is your on biodiversity. I don’t think the press has even covered this. assessment? When I asked somebody to check, the only thing they found was 2 minutes on NPR. Maybe there’s more. The media coverage should have been along the lines of That’s what’s happening before our eyes. You cannot what I just described. It wasn’t. Most of what I just measure the malevolence. The New England Journal of described you can read about only in medical journals or Medicine is kind. They call it incompetence. It’s not scientific journals. It should have been front and center, incompetence. We know exactly what’s going on. The idea going way back to 2003, and emphasizing the fact that we is maximize the prospects for my election, benefit my are now in the same situation. Scientists are saying exactly constituency of the rich and the corporate sector. Nothing what they said then. else matters. We are still in the grips of capitalist logic and savage You can continue with this. Take deregulation. Of neoliberalism. We are still in the hands of leadership of course, deregulation is part of the race to destruction from extreme malevolence. The three worst, perhaps, are those I environmental catastrophe, which happens to be much more mentioned, Trump in the lead; his clone, Bolsonaro, in important than the pandemic. So deregulate to increase Brazil, the second largest country in the hemisphere; the corporate profits, fossil fuel profits. Meanwhile, destroy the world’s largest democracy, or perhaps I should say former environment in which human life might survive and also democracy, India, in the hands of Modi, a monster who is protect Americans. When you deregulate, say, emissions, trying to destroy the relics of Indian democracy, meanwhile mercury going into streams, the chemicals that cause brain killing huge numbers of Indians, turning India into a Hindu damage for children, you hurt Americans. Primarily you national religious ethnocracy and crushing the rights of 4

Muslims, destroying Kashmir. These are the three leaders. We don’t have to accept that either. The pharmaceutical No one is even close in cases and deaths. I should say this corporations say, We need it or there won’t be innovation. is slightly misleading, because I’m not counting deaths per There are much better means of innovation than pouring capita. When you look at that, you get a slightly different dollars into the hands of the pharmaceutical corporations. picture. It’s worth looking at. But these figures are very Many of them have been worked out. The economist who striking. has done most of the work on this is Dean Baker. You can And the malevolence is striking. We are now in a read the details in his free online book Rigged. He makes a situation where further pandemics are very likely, with lot of sensible proposals about how to get rid of this habitat destruction even more likely, with heating the monstrosity. So, yes, as in every other case, there are ways atmosphere even more likely. They might be worse than this to deal with these problems, but you have to move. You one, as I mentioned. We know what has to be done. We can’t let the powerful just run things the way they want. don’t have a lot of time to do it. The same impediments to Now, on whether vaccines are likely to be developed, I dealing with this one still exist. It’s within our reach to have no expert knowledge. I just read the scientific journals overcome them, but if you we don’t work in a dedicated, and report what they say. Right now it looks as though committed way on it, it will happen. This is the course we’re China is in the lead in developing a vaccine which is being on, just as we are on a course towards environmental subjected to pretty widespread trials. There is hesitation destruction unless we sharply change direction. about not knowing all the details, but the general reports seem to be fairly favorable, thinking maybe they’re likely to What are you hearing about possible vaccines being come up with the first vaccine. Americans will be deprived developed to address coronavirus, and who will administer of it. Why? Because Trump, in order to maximize his power it, how much it will cost, will Big Pharma make a killing? and electoral prospects, has to blame everything on China. So if Americans are harmed, who cares? More of them can It’s in our hands. There’s no reason for Big Pharma to make die. He’s already killed tens of thousands. He’ll kill more. a killing. If you look at vaccines and pharmaceuticals What ought to be done is international cooperation on generally, a lot of the major work is done by the development of a number of vaccines. There are many government, either by the National Institutes of Health or different approaches. We don’t know which will work. We by direct grants to the pharmaceutical corporations from the don’t even know if any will work. There are different government. Well, there is actually a law on the books—the approaches. They should be developed cooperatively, not Birch Bayh-Bob Dole law from 1981—saying that if the with Operation Warp Speed to try to get one for the U.S. government has a substantial role in the development of and nobody else but cooperative measures of the kind that pharmaceuticals, vaccines, anything, then they should be are being at least discussed in the international consortium offered to the public at a competitive price, no profits. that the U.S. pulled out of. That’s the way research should That’s on the books. I think maybe it’s even been rescinded be conducted. It should all be open research, so not by now, but it was on the books. And that would mean no controlled by a particular corporation for themselves. Open, profits. so everyone can use it and benefit from it. That’s how We are also strangled, I should say, by one of Clinton’s research should be done all the time, crucially when it’s great gifts to neoliberalism, the World Trade Organization such an urgent situation as this one. There is no reason why rules, which provide extraordinary what are called that can’t happen. Trump just got the best possible medical intellectual property rights, patent rights of a kind that never treatment, not available to anyone else, including the use of existed in the past and would have prevented the drugs for which there will be a monopoly. It doesn’t have to development of the U.S. and every other country if they had be. They can be open and available to anyone, and they existed. They amount to massive monopoly pricing rights. should be. That’s the way a decent world ought to work. For the pharmaceutical industry they’re a bonanza. The We happen to have a wrecker in office who wants to government helps, pays crucial parts of the development of destroy everything possible, everything in sight, if it’s not some drug, then tells the pharmaceutical companies, You his. Look around. The world is in great danger. The extent can make the profits from it and keep them forever. A large to which we see this happening and barely reported is mind- part of what’s called the wealth of the corporate sector in boggling. the U.S. comes from these TRIPS, (Trade-Related Aspects Let’s take the Iran sanctions. The U.S. wants the United of Intellectual Property Rights,) Nations to renew the sanctions against Iran. It took the That’s one of the main reasons that Apple is a 2-trillion- proper step. It went to the Security Council, requested that dollar corporation. The iPhones are produced in China, but the Security Council renew the sanctions. Total opposition; they get almost nothing from it. The Foxconn corporation in not a single U.S. ally agreed. The Security Council, with one Taiwan that runs it makes some profit, but most of it comes minor exception, the Dominican Republic, totally rejected back here to Apple, a large part of it, because they have the it. Did that matter? Mike Pompeo returned to the Security patent on design and so on and so forth. It’s a very large part Council and said, “I hereby inform you that you are of the economy by now. That’s Clinton. reinstituting the sanctions.” Why? Because we say so. 5

That’s what just happened. How many headlines did you see least bringing something to the people who were adoring the about that? dear leader. The economies were improving. They were. The world cares. They’re frightened. The extent to which They reconstructed the economies. They were winning the world is frightened of the rogue state on the rampage is victories. Horrible, hideous victories, but at least victories. remarkable. Take the world’s major business journal, the What’s Trump doing for his constituency? He’s London Financial Times. You can’t find a more sober, destroying them. He’s offering them nothing. They’re respected commentator in the world than Martin Wolf of the getting smashed worse and worse by his policies. They still Financial Times. Ask economists and journalists. He is adore him. The manner in which I heard as a kid at careful, not given to exaggeration, highly regarded. He just Nuremberg rallies. It’s a very remarkable commentary on came out with a column saying that if Trump is elected, the the culture and the society. damage will be “terminal.” And he wasn’t even talking about the major crises. He was talking about the crisis of How does this connect with Richard Hofstadter in his book international affairs, which is serious but doesn’t rank Anti-Intellectualism in American Life and another book anywhere near the ones we’re talking about. But reelection that he wrote, both in the 1960s, The Paranoid Style in of Trump will be terminal. That’s on minor crises from one American Politics, which looked at how fringe groups can of the most sober voices in the world. influence politics?

No matter the outcome of the November 3rd election, tens I never liked those theses. For one thing, the most paranoid of millions of Americans are going to vote for Trump. That group in American life is the elite liberal intellectuals. Take in and of itself is very disturbing. a look at the Truman Doctrine, take a look at NSC 68. Total crazed hysteria, ridiculous lies, conscious lies, in order, as It is. But ask yourself why they’re doing it. These are Senator Vandenberg put it, to “scare hell out of the Americans who have basically one source of information. It American people.” We don’t have time to go into the details, comes in different packages. It comes from Fox News, Rush but if you take a look at it, that’s exactly what it was. That Limbaugh, Breitbart, talk radio. They are bombarded all the was the liberal elite. They reconstructed themselves under time with essentially the same message. The message is— the Camelot regime as “the best and the brightest.” I don’t Rush Limbaugh put it very well—there are four corners of have to go through that record again. It practically destroyed deceit: government, academia, media, and science. They all the world. It caused hideous atrocities in Latin America, all survive on deceit. Don’t pay any attention to them. Pay sorts of other things. That’s the paranoid style at work. attention to the magician behind the curtain, our god Trump, That’s the leading intellectuals. Yes, you see it among the “the chosen one,” as he calls himself, the one who was sent population that is mesmerized by Breitbart and Fox News. to Earth to save Israel from Iran, according to the sycophant But we can’t just say it’s only there. It goes well beyond. who is his secretary of state. They can hear the same from evangelical mega-preachers. Magical thinking is probably as old as the hills. But do you The result? You can see it. Almost half think that global think the current surge is connected to the growth of social warming isn’t even taking place. Among the rest of media? Republicans, a small minority think it’s an urgent problem. A great number think the pandemic is a liberal hoax that was First of all, I should say I’m speaking as an outsider. I don’t sent by China to try to destroy us. If that’s the kind of story look at them, I don’t use them. But judging from what I see, you have pounded into you day and night and you never it seems to me they’re a double-edged sword. Almost all the hear anything else, and you’ve got this very skilled con man activist organizing takes place on social media. Black Lives standing up in front of you holding up a sign saying “I love Matter organizing, most of it I guess is on social media. On you, I defend you” while with the other hand he stabs you the other hand, it does provide a refuge for truly malevolent in the back, if that’s what you’re faced with all the time, developments to take place—QAnon, Proud Boys, all of yeah, you might vote for him. Like the evangelicals It’s a this stuff. Even for all of us, you and me, I’m sure, to the huge bloc. It’s 25% of the population. He throws them extent that we use it, to the extent that we use the Internet, crumbs. Supreme Court justice. Pastors who can preach we kind of tend to move towards the kinds of sources that political messages from the pulpit, a pretense—of course, reinforce our beliefs. That’s not a good thing. You should it’s a total pretense—to be anti-abortion. Throw them all have a wide range of exposure. But it’s pretty natural—and that. That way you can keep a constituency in line. social media magnified this tendency—to move towards Actually, I should say this is all evoking childhood what you believe. There’s good reasons for that, and also memories. Adoring crowds who worshiped Hitler at the bad effects. The bad effects are just driving people into Nuremberg rallies or Mussolini at his rallies. You hear that bubbles, where you hear nothing but what you believe again when you watch a Trump rally. There is a striking reinforced. You get your news from Facebook, which is a difference, however. Hideous as the Fascist, Nazi policies shallow filtering of the filtering that goes on in the main were—and they were beyond description—they were at media sources, which at least have some range. All of that 6 is pretty harmful. As I’m sure you know, there are of the populations. That’s a large part of the cause for the universities now where the administration is putting plaques bitter, violent conflicts raging through the region. on the sidewalks saying “Look Up”; in other words, don’t Take, say, Iraq. The British drew the borders around Iraq just stare into that thing in your hand. Talk to somebody, so that Britain, not Turkey, the former Ottoman Empire, look at your surroundings. I think that’s having a pretty would have control of the rich oil resources in the north. harmful effect on the society. That brought together Kurds and Arabs, who had nothing to do with each other. The British, furthermore wanted to make In terms of censorship, there are calls for social media sure that the new creation they were imposing would not be conspiracy-theory sites to be shut down. How do you stand independent, would not have free, easy access to the Gulf, on that kind of action? so they carved out the principality of Kuwait, which the British would control, to prevent Iraq from having easy I can see the argument for it, but I think we should be very access to the Gulf. wary of it. For one thing, I think it probably has almost no Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, the same thing: Lines drawn effect. There are so many ways to get around it, they will by French and British imperialists for their interests. All quickly find them. And it also builds up the belief that these over Africa you see straight lines. Why? The imperial liberal fascists are trying to wipe out us honest Americans. powers were destroying Africa in their interests. Hideous It feeds that theory. atrocities. We don’t have to go through them. They’re still The other thing is just principle. I don’t think the right showing up with the people dying in the Mediterranean way to deal with horrendous ideas is to try to shut them up. fleeing from the horrors that were created. So it’s not just It’s to expose them and combat them. Let’s take so-called Stalin. All the imperial powers. deplatforming. Somebody is invited to a university whose In the case of Armenia and Azerbaijan, there is a long views you think are horrendous. There are two ways of history. We can’t go through it. But the immediate crisis, as approaching it. One way, drive them off campus. A you say, came when Azerbaijan, surely with Turkish tremendous gift to them and to the right wing generally, for backing, Israeli arms pouring in, Ben Gurion Airport obvious reasons. We’ve seen it over and over again. There observers are seeing Ilyushin planes coming in and out is another approach. Let them come to campus, set up while virtually no other planes are flying, sending Israeli meetings where you expose them, counter their arguments, arms to Azerbaijan so they can kill people in Nagorno- in fact, invite them to your meetings. Of course, they won’t Karabakh that are mostly Armenian. So, yes, this is an come. Raise questions to them and so on. That’s escalation. educational, that’s the way to counter it. I think that Russia is in on both sides. Iran is supporting Armenia. generalizes. The censorship is the de-platforming. The other Very strange relations. It’s horrible for the people there. It’s things are wrong in principle. They’re probably tactically a very dangerous situation. It’s a time for international wrong as well. diplomacy and negotiations to take place to try to dampen it down. The actors are not the nicest people in the world, to The fighting in the southern Caucasus might be an example put it mildly. Erdoğan in Turkey is basically trying to of what Edward Said called “unresolved geographies,” a recreate something like the Ottoman caliphate with him as legacy of imperial cartographers. Stalin, as Commissar of the caliph, the supreme leader, throwing his weight around Minorities in 1920, to placate Turkey, gave Nagorno- all over the place, destroying the remnants of democracy in Karabakh, which Armenians call Artsakh and Nakhchivan, Turkey at the same time. Israel is interested only in selling both Armenian-majority areas, over to Azerbaijan. Then, arms. They will sell them to anybody, no matter who they’re with the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, killing. That’s the mainstay of their economy—security and fighting breaks out, resulting in Armenian forces taking arms. And right here where I live, the border not far from Nagorno-Karabakh. There have been skirmishes and so- where I live is being fortified with the crucial assistance of called incidents on and off since then. But the attack by Israeli so-called security elements, forces and corporations. Azerbaijan which began on September 27th, no doubt in That’s their job, Elbit Systems in this case. Yes, there’s coordination with Turkey, represents a major escalation. plenty of malevolent forces involved. You can only hope The reporting here, the little that there is, is without that there will be some kind of international effort to historical background or context: Fighting erupts, they are dampen down the atrocities and the aggression before it ancient enemies, etc. What are the roots of this conflict? really explodes into massive massacres on the scene and possibly international war, because many powerful The roots of this conflict are too complicated to go into. international forces are involved. They go way back. You’re right that Stalin drew the borders, but remember, he was not the only one to draw borders. The Turkey is also shuttling ISIS jihadi fighters from Syria and entire Middle East was carved up by French and British paying their salaries to go and fight with the Azerbaijanis imperialists drawing lines where they wanted, which were against the Armenians. to their benefit, taking no account of the needs and interest 7

That’s apparently true. In fact, Turkey is probably doing the Constitution against foreign and domestic enemies.” That’s same in Libya, one of the other places where Erdoğan is the phrase. Now, you’re facing a domestic enemy which is trying to show his power. Yes, that’s reported in Azerbaijan. intending to overthrow the constitutional order. It is your duty under the oath you have taken to send in military Armenia in 2018 had a peaceful democratic revolution led forces, they say “a brigade of the 82nd Airborne,” to by Nikol Pashinyan overthrowing the ruling oligarchy. This forcefully disperse what they say is Trump’s army, his was one of the few instances where there was a non-violent paramilitary forces, and to remove him from office. That’s revolution replacing an autocratic regime in the post-Soviet your duty on January 20th if the defeated candidate, states. It wasn’t well reported on here in the U.S. President Trump, refuses to leave office and mobilizes forces to try to protect him. As far as I know, there was essentially no interest in the U.S. What the chances of this happening are, I haven’t the If there was, I failed to detect it. Yes, it was for once, slightest idea. To me it sounds unimaginable. But maybe my apparently, a real democratic revolution. What’s happened imagination isn’t fertile enough. The crucial fact is that in beyond that, I don’t really know the details. very high places people are talking about it seriously. I’m sure you saw Barton Gellman’s long, detailed article in The You know my background is Armenian, and I’ve been to the Atlantic, one of the top correspondents, about how not republic of Armenia. It’s a relatively poor country. It’s Trump but the Republican machine is becoming organized landlocked, it has a small population of about 3 million. I with collections of lawyers and all sorts of others to try to went to some villages and I noticed that there were no young find a way to finagle their candidate into office after he or middle-aged men in the village. I asked around, “Where loses: discredit the election, discredit mail voting, challenge is everybody?” They say, “Oh, all the men folk have gone everything with all sorts of lawsuits, see if you can drag it off to Russia because there’s no work here.” So Armenia is out long enough to turn it over to the House. in kind of a desperate situation. The Constitution does allow under certain circumstances for the issue to go to the House. In the House the Democrats It’s apparently true. And all the more reason why there are a large majority. The Constitutional rules say each state should be some major international effort to terminate the has one vote. When you look at the distribution of states, I current aggression and to try to find some way to resolve the think it’s 26 of them that have Republican governors. So convoluted problem of Nagorno-Karabakh, where there is they could get at voting for the defeated candidate in the an Armenian population inside a mostly Azerbaijani- House. controlled area. It’s not an easy one to resolve, but through Then you come to January 2nd, two candidates appear reasonable negotiations there could be an outcome that and say, “I’m president.” One of them is surrounded by a possibly could be undertaken throughout Central Asia, the private army of paramilitaries. What happens then? That’s Caucuses and the Middle East. But it’s not going to be easy. what the Republican Party is planning. Trump happens to be its leader, but it’s not just him. In fact, the same letter Let’s turn to the upcoming election and all the trepidation refers to the Republicans in Congress as supplicants at the and fear surrounding it. Put your thinking cap on. What will foot of the president. It’s not an unfair description. It’s hard happen on Election Day and the days after? Will there be a to find a shred of integrity. The rot goes much deeper than peaceful outcome? It’s kind of amazing that we’re even Trump. He’s turned, as the New English Journal of using this kind of terminology and vocabulary. Medicine you quoted, “a crisis into a tragedy.” But the crisis is there. It’s a deep rot at the center of the society. It is amazing that the question is being raised. With very rare We should recognize that even apart from Trump, if this exceptions, this hasn’t happened in 350 years of malignancy had never appeared, we would still be facing a parliamentary democracy in Britain and the U.S. It’s constitutional crisis, and a very serious one. In the 18th astonishing that the question is raised, not by you and me century the Constitution was a progressive document. Now but right at the centers of the establishment. The things that it is so reactionary that if the U.S. tried to join the European are being discussed and said are almost unimaginable. Union, with our constitutional system we would be rejected To take one striking example, two highly respected by the European Court of Justice. We’re slaves to a senior military commanders, now retired, John Nagl, and document which was progressive in its time but now has Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling recently released a public features that can’t be accepted in any moderately open letter to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, democratic society. General Milley, the top military officer in the country, The worst case is the Senate. Remember, the Senate was reviewing for him his constitutional duties in case what they established by James Madison. He understood what he was call “a lawless president” decides not to leave office after an doing. Madison, like the framers generally, was very electoral defeat and mobilizes paramilitary groups to protect frightened of democracy. He wanted to block it. The Senate him from being evicted from office. They say in that event, was to be the major decision-making group in the you took an oath of office to support and defend the constitutional system. It was to be constituted of, as 8

Madison put it, “the wealth of the nation,” those who were It was revealed that he owes something like $400 million, sympathetic to property owners and their rights. That’s who and he doesn’t pay taxes. Anyway, let’s go back again to should run the country. John Jay, the first Chief Justice, put focus on the ecocatastrophe that is now in our face, much it, “Those who own the country ought to govern it.” That’s faster than predicted: wildfires, hurricanes, floods, Arctic the principle of the Constitution. It’s been carried over. and Greenland ice melting. September was the hottest There have been many struggles about it. The effort to crush month on record. Death Valley had the highest ever democracy has been overcome in many ways, but much of recorded temperature on Earth, 130 degrees Fahrenheit. it is still there. That’s 54 degrees Celsius. We are hurtling toward climate Just take a look at the Senate. Wyoming has about half a catastrophe. million people, 2 votes. California has 40 million people, 2 votes. The Republican constituency—not only through Every prediction of the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel control of small states but in the demographic arrangements on Climate Change, the UN agency, has turned out to be too in the major states, happens to have predominant power to conservative, not alarmist enough. Highly respected leading such an extreme that probably about 15-20% of the scientists are warning us we should panic now. The population could pretty much run the government—older, deadliest effects of environmental catastrophe are in the white, male, Christian, super-religious, traditional, gun- distance. A huge rise in sea level, that’s going to happen loving, evangelical. That sector is there. It’s a shrinking slowly, not tomorrow. Early signs of catastrophe are indeed minority, a small minority that could run things. This is a around us, as you mentioned. It’s going to get much worse. constitutional order that’s not going to survive, especially We don’t know how much. There is a margin of error. But with the changes taking place. every serious analysis predicts extreme danger, maybe an That’s assuming that we survive at all. And that’s up for end to the possibility of organized human life. Not grabs. It’s a very dramatic fact that in these two conventions tomorrow, maybe at the end of the century, maybe a couple that just took place we heard nothing about what the major of centuries. crisis maybe we face—the increasing threat of nuclear war. But we have the fate of the future in our hands. We have Nothing about that. And very little about the other crisis, the maybe 10 or 20 years to overcome it. The means to existential crisis that we face, the race towards overcome it are available. My co-author, Robert Pollin, an environmental catastrophe. We’ve got to deal with that economist at the University of Massachusetts, has done very within the next 10 or 20 years. If that’s not handled, we’re detailed, careful studies. They’re being implemented in finished. The changes that are taking place in the states, some countries. There is very convincing evidence atmosphere are permanent, they’re escalating. We can’t do that by maybe 2% to 3% of gross domestic product we could anything about them. You can fantasize about potential bring all of this under control. Other analysts, like Jeffrey geoengineering. You can imagine that for years from now, Sachs at Columbia, using somewhat different models, have but not anything in the foreseeable future that will have come up with quite similar estimates. There is a very high anything to do with these catastrophes. We know how to probability that if we use the right measures, which are solve them, all of them. The means are within our hands, available and feasible, we can put a hold on the race to they’re feasible. But just as in the case of the pandemic, it’s disaster and—and this is crucial—create a much better not enough to know. You have to do something about it. world, a world with better jobs, better lives, better circumstances to live in, and better institutions. I should point out that the Joint Chiefs of Staff are currently All of this is within reach. But you have to reach for it. under quarantine because of COVID-19. It’s like ending the pandemic. Yes, within reach, but not if In addition to the Electoral College, another bizarre we don’t grab the opportunity. If we are cursed with another aspect of the U.S. system is the interregnum between the four years of Trump, it might be too late. We might be past first Tuesday in November, the election, and the January or approaching irreversible tipping points. At the very best, 20th inauguration. That’s almost three months. Anything the chances to deal with this crisis within the short time that could happen in that period. we have will be severely lessened. I should say the same about the topic that is not being Paul Krugman happens to have a column in The New York mentioned. The threat of nuclear war is extremely serious. Times today warning that if Trump is not elected, and if— Among the other things that Trump has aimed his wrecking and it’s a big if—he concedes, by no means certain, he has ball at is the arms control regime. It’s basically gone. He’s three months to apply his wrecking ball. Out of spite he eliminated it piece by piece. The parts that were initiated by might just devastate the economy. Actually, there’s Eisenhower, the participants that were set up by Reagan, something we must bear in mind about President Trump, one after another is toppled. We have to destroy it. The last which is brought up in the Nagl-Yingling letter. He may be piece of it, the new START agreement, is coming up. With facing serious criminal charges if he’s out of office and loses frivolous reasons the Trump administration has rejected immunity. He has a personal reason to hang on. Russian pleading to renew it. It’s coming up in February, maybe too late to save. Meanwhile, at the same time, that’s 9 combined with creating new, very threatening weapons, one of a million—you see them every day—on the severely endangering not only us but the entire world, with wondrous new developments in the eastern Mediterranean. the control regime disappearing. Chevron bought up a smaller company, which can now Serious people concerned with these issues, like William exploit what they call Israel’s—it actually should be Perry, who has been involved with it all his life, former Palestine’s—huge petroleum resources and pour the poison defense secretary, say they’re simply terrified by the into the world. Euphoric. Look how wonderful this is. We growing threat and by the blindness to it, the refusal even to can increase the destruction of the atmosphere. You see that mention it. Find a word about it outside of the arms control daily. What does that tell people? literature. These things are coming at us like a roaring We can raise consciousness among liberal intellectuals locomotive, and we’re sitting on the tracks playing games. enough so you don’t see things like that. We can move It’s unbelievable. People speculate as to whether there is forward to take over the fossil fuel industries, not extraterrestrial intelligence. If there is, and if they’re nationalize them. The nationalized fossil fuel industries are watching what is happening here, they must think the like Saudi Arabia and others. They are worse than the species is totally insane. We have a little time left show that private ones. But socialize them. Put them in the hands of we’re not totally insane. If not, we’ll destroy ourselves. the work force in the community. Have them turn to things that have to be done, ranging from capping wells that the You mentioned Robert Pollin. You and he have written a corporations have left open because they don’t give a damn new book called Climate Crisis and the Global Green New but matter for us, from that to shifting to working on Deal. In there you cite the famous observation from Antonio sustainable energy, which they know how to do. We might Gramsci about “The old is dying and the new cannot be bear in mind that the leading force in the environmental born; in this interregnum, a great variety of morbid movement 40 years ago was Tony Mazzocchi’s Oil, symptoms appear.” And then you write, “But such morbid Chemical and Atomic Workers Union, the labor movement. symptoms are countered by rising activism on climate They’re the ones who are being harmed by the destructive change and many other fronts. The new has not yet been production of polluting, destroying elements. Mazzocchi born, but it is emerging in many intricate ways, and it is far was in the lead of this, with his union behind him. That can from clear what form it will take.” happen again. It can happen right in the oil industry, cutting In terms of the kind of activism that’s required now and it back year by year a certain percentage till you get rid of the urgency of activism and citizen engagement, how do we it, say, by mid-century, turning to more economical, more break the grip of what you call “capitalist logic”? beneficial, sustainable energy. Oil, petroleum workers, there aren’t very many of them, but they could be in the You can’t break the grip of it entirely, but you can modify forefront of this. it. It’s not a secret. What’s called capitalism is actually a There are many things we could be moving to. Take the kind of state capitalism. No country is capitalist. A capitalist automobile industry. Instead of cluttering up the highways, society would self-destruct so quickly it couldn’t exist. making lots of traffic jams to get to work, producing more Business wouldn’t allow it. So every existing society is one pollutants because Trump is eliminating regulations. Instead or another form of state capitalism. They can be more of that, auto workers could be developing efficient mass malevolent, they can be more benevolent. Within the transportation. It not only saves the environment. It’s a existing, the relevant time span, a couple of decades, we’re better life. Sitting on convenient mass transportation to get not going to overthrow capitalist institutions. to work is a lot more pleasant than sitting in a traffic jam We could seriously change them. It’s perfectly possible, and polluting the environment. Homes can be weatherized, for example, to have a carbon tax which is not of the kind insulated, shifting to solar energy instead of wasting fossil that’s been proposed but a really serious carbon tax in fuels. It actually saves you a lot of money and gives you a which, say, 75% of the revenue would go back to working pleasanter life, and it also saves the environment. people and people who need it, a redistributive carbon tax. There are endless things that can be done across the Then you wouldn’t get what you’re getting in France with board: individual, state, local, federal, international. There the Yellow Vests. Macron tried to institute a rise in fuel ought to be an international effort. There are no borders to taxes and got a rebellion from people who rightly say, We’re global warming. the victims of it. It’s the poor and the working people who We should bear in mind that almost half the emissions in way out of proportion pay this, and they’re the ones who the future are going to come from what’s called the need the relief, not the further burden. So not that kind of developing societies, the poorer societies. They need help. carbon tax, but the kind that is politically correct and viable They need help in transitioning to much more efficient, because it will redistribute the revenue to the population and cheaper, more beneficial, sustainable energy. But in the cut back on the profits of those who are destroying the initial stages they need help. One of the parts of the Paris environment. negotiations, which were nowhere near enough but were at We have to change consciousness. I just happened to least something, was to offer help to developing nations to look at this morning’s New York Times. There is an article, move towards sustainable energy. The Republicans 10 generally don’t want it. Trump just killed it: Absolutely not. For information about obtaining CDs, mp3s, or transcripts of We’re not going to help anyone save ourselves and the this or other programs, please contact: world. Not for us. This kind of malignancy has to be overcome. That has to be dealt with on a every level, from an individual putting LED lights in their home to international efforts. What the federal government does is critically important. All of that is within our hands. It doesn’t require a major social RISE UP Alternative Radio revolution. The means are all there, even without substantial P.O. Box 551 institutional change. Boulder, CO 80306 My own view is, yes, we should overcome the profound (800) 444-1977 flaws that are built into the capitalist system itself. It’s not [email protected] an alternative to this; it’s complementary to it. You do both www.alternativeradio.org at the same time. But the urgent problem of overcoming the ©2020 existential crises—global warming, nuclear war, pandemics—has to be done within the general framework of existing institutions. We can improve them. But you won’t be able to overcome them in the relevant time frame. That’s life. You can’t get everything you want immediately. You can do the best you can, and there’s a lot that we can do.

It sounds like the Rolling Stone song. “You can’t always get what you want, But if you try sometimes you find, You get what you need.” You’ve outlined some of those opportunities to break the grip of capitalism in your forthcoming book, Consequences of Capitalism, written with Marv Waterstone, who is your colleague at the University of Arizona. But let me conclude with a very serious question that people have asked me, and that is information about your dogs, their names, and do they share your politics, crucially?

Unfortunately, I can’t say their names. Right now they are under my desk. If I say their names, there will be a mad rush to the door. And I can’t even spell their names because they’ve learned how to spell. So I’ll have to do it encrypted someday.

How about their politics?

I haven’t really quizzed them, but they seem to be tolerating endless interviews quietly, so I guess they’re not objecting too much. (laughter)

I’ll take the hint. Take care.

Thanks.

(Due to time constraints some portions of the interview were not included in the national broadcast. Those portions are included in this transcript.)